any info on "supplemental health care" company?

[nico]

hello everyone!!! my wife and i are thinkng about travel nursing. we have chosen "supplemental health care " because it allows interational travellng as well. we hope to go to minneapolis in our first assignement( in june ) to go visit my wife's family. doeas anybody have any info on the hospitals in the area or about the company? thanks a lot

[mimirn]

I traveled with supplemental for 2 years back in 2001. They were wonderful. Spent 4 months in Hawaii, 1 year in California ( kept renewing my contract) and 4 months in N.C. then stopped to locate permanently for a while. I decided to take a travel position again in 2006 and there was no question that I would go back to supplemental. I was able to go back to Hawaii again. I don't know about other travelers but I had an excellent experience with them both times. I just spoke to Margaret @ Suppl. a few days. I am currently locked into a permanent position until July 2009 but I am already thinking of going back to traveling when that ends. My husband traveled with me ( he is not a nurse) and it was wonderful. We to are looking for international travel. Best of luck and as far as I'm concerned, you've made a good choice.

[mimirn]

Sorry Nico, just saw the date on your request. Hope you are still traveling. If you do read this let me know how its going.

[Justin Trust]

Supplemental Healthcare recruited several nurses into Denver, Co for CONTRACTED 36 hours a week employment. The hospital said it was travel, then changed it to "per diem" in the middle of the contract. Supplemental (even with a signed travel contract) stated it was per diem all along and did not pay their nurses, did not pay their housing and left them out in the cold. The nurses did not work even one day in the units they were contracted for. Supplemental expected nurses to be ON CALL seven days a week to get 1 day of pay and the pay was $16.00 an hour!!!
The nurses are considering a class action law suit for breach of contract and employment terms. Supplemental Healthcare lied to the nurses regarding the positions and signed the contract anyway! They called it "their project" because they were the only agency in the hospital and didn't want to risk losing their contract. It is shameful to bring in "LIFE SAVERS" and treat them as merely human capital. SHAME ON SUPPLEMENTAL HEALTHCARE. If you have worked for Supplemental and experienced a breach of contract or employment terms, please contact me. I will pass your information on to the lawyer handling the class action suit against them.

[cali510]

Thank you for providing this info, Justin, and welcome to the site. Hope your weekend is going well.

[TravRN3]

Hello. I am new here and when searching travel positions on the Internet I saw this post. I am one of the nurses who were hired in Denver. It is true about Supplemental not honoring their contracts. Everyday was an arguement. I contacted their corporate office (Vice President) and never got a response from her, only that she was busy with the "talent"...whatever!

I was hired on a travel position in the ICU on March 17th. I oriented two days (the recruiter sent me in an hour late the first day), then I was called off the remaining 2 days of the week. I confronted my recruiter and she said: "Your check will be zero." So I let it ride, then the next week I was placed on a unit I hadn't oriented on and that I wasn't hired for. The charge nurse took a 2+ hour nap and I took the admissions~!
I confronted the company about that. They did not back me up.

Some weeks I worked a day, some weeks I didn't work any days. My bills piled up, I even started selling my stuff on Ebay to make ends meet and Supplemental knew that. Supplemental tried to tell me I had to give a 36 hour a week schedule to the hospital and then be available the other 4 days in case I was cancelled in order to get 36 hours. I was ON CALL 7 days a week.

I had to call every night to see if I worked. Sometimes I didn't know until 6pm and the shift started at 7pm!
Sometimes Supplemental put me on without even asking me. I think Supplemental thinks a nurse should pay them for working for them and that they own you and your time even when they've breached a contract. It is terrible. The worst travel company I have ever worked for!

In 7 weeks, I had worked around 8 shifts despite being available nearly everyday and having to turn down work with other agencies who had it available because Supplemental paid my rent (after begging). I was short nearly $10,000.00 Supplemental owed me on my contracted hours and still does. My last paycheck was for 1 day and they screwed that up. I told them the nurses were considering a class action law suit and they terminated me! The excuse was that I was noncompliant on a physical that expires THIS MONTH. Physicals cost money, something you don't get while working with Supplemental! I suppose I was supposed to go without food to get a phsical when I may or may not work on a unit I wasn't even hired for...Uh, OK :nurse-butt:<Supplemental...will kick you when you are down!

I just asked for compensation under my "contract". I suppose terminating an employee for standing up for their rights is the way to fix the problem. Nurses came in from out of state under contract and Supplemental figured firing us one by one will keep their butts out of the sling. Maybe with 8 or 9 nurses terminated for various unjustified reasons, one nurse just might get 36 hours a week on a unit she/he wasn't even hired for. Isn't this story pathetic?

Feel free to contact the Vice President at Supplemental and ask her WHAT'S GOING ON and why she treats the people who pays her check so badly. While you're at it, I would appreciate being paid the money they owe me! My contract isn't (wasn't) over until June 20th.

I love sites like this where the world of travel nurses can get hold of the rope of trust that will ultimately hang them! If you would like to see corresponding emails of how Supplemental played "the game" and how we went from a travel job to termination, feel free to ask. I am more than willing to publish them.
Here is her contact information, you have a right to know as a professional why she runs her business the way she does. I wish I'd had it before I trusted them with my life!

hmarcom@supplementalhealthcare.com
Here's her common rejection (back to back) email, please note the salutation returned to me after writing her regarding the WORST travel job I've ever been on. You tell me if it looks like she cares at all:

Dear E-mailer:

I am very sorry to have missed your message. I will be out of the office April 20th through April 23rd training our internal talent to make sure our field talent and clients receive the highest levels of quality, service and performance. I will have very limited access to phone or email but will respond as quickly as possible when I return.
If your message is urgent, please call my cell phone at: 407-493-9623 and I will return your call as soon as possible.

Best Regards,
Heather Marcom


Heather Marcom
Regional Vice President West
Supplemental Health Care

When quality, service and performance matter, health care professionals turn to Supplemental Health Care first. :nurse-hang:
Phone: 435-776-7259

Dear E-mailer:

I am very sorry to have missed your message. I will be out of the office May 8thh meeting with our talent and clients to ensure that when quality, service and performance matter, they will turn to Supplemental Health Care. I will have very limited access to phone or email but will respond as quickly as possible when I return. (HELLO HEATHER IT'S 2009)...unforgivable!
If your message is urgent, please call my cell phone at: 407-493-9623 and I will return your call as soon as possible. (She NEVER did)
Best Regards,
Heather Marcom

Heather Marcom
Regional Vice President West
Supplemental Health Care :nurse-stupid:

[TravRN3]

I forgot to ask for the contact information Mr. Trust. Please email it to me. I would like to at least be compensated for the weeks I worked under a "contract" but the entire contract would be nice!
I would drop the whole thing if I were compensated as a professional. It is that simple. But some companies are too greedy for what they can get now, than what they will get in the future. They will just change their name when it gets bad enough. They all do. Thank you for posting this information.

[cali510]

Well TravRN3, nothing tells it better than someone who has been there. You should seek the help of an attorney. Look for a "modest means panel" with your local lawyer referral service if you can't afford one. Hope you are able to get the money that is owed you.

[TravRN3]

Thank you for your advise. The contracts state they are governed under the laws of UTAH and that seems to be a state that is for the employee and their rights.
When I accepted this Denver assignment I was offered a job in Texas as well but since I was already here, and the job was 9 blocks away I took it. That was a huge mistake! I should have went to Texas.

My main goal right now is to straighten out the mess Supplemental left me in which is really hard. I have no one to depend on but me. I have been traveling for the bulk of 16 years and it is VERY hard for me to trust a travel company. In 16 years I can't understand why they bite the hand that feeds them! Travel Nursing needs to be regulated or a Federal agency started where a nurse can get well deserved support. Often times nurses are in a vulnerable situation and depend on the travel company for their very lives. I can tell you so many horror stories.

There are other issues they have caused other than non payment of a contract. Since I started employment with them every bill I have has been late! My car insurance even lapsed for the first time in my life! I don't know if I can pay the rent this month which ruins the rental history I tried to create. Hopefully punative damages will set an example that nurses DO NOT ever deserve to be treated like this! It is a nightmare.

After I wrote the post this morning I emailed the link to Heather Marcom. Believe it or not there was no "out of site out of mind-out of the office" automated reply but also there was no other reply either. Hopefully as a human being, she will see that what they have done here is highly unacceptable to nurses and remedy this situation...but somehow I highly doubt it.

Evidence has proven that they have no real business ethics and no compassion for people and they are in the wrong business. We work against the very grain of Supplemental's core-we HELP people, we don't destroy them. We all know Heather Marcom saw this, she's keeping up with it and let's just see what Supplemental is really made of. Let's see if they do what is right and prove me wrong about them. If they have 1 grain of professional integrity, they will remedy this situation but I think Heather Marcom, along with other corporate staff are at a barbeque today enjoying their lives. I will keep you posted.

Again thank you for this opportunity. Nurses have a right to know. It is our professional integrity and our license on the line everytime we take a travel position and hit the floor running like we've been there a hundred years!